A system of protocols normally controls the ways a mobile station and a base station may operate in a communication system. Such protocols are disclosed in a set of standards published by a recognized standard body. The protocols may define a set of channels, such as traffic channels for communication of user data and control channels for communications of control data. The control channels may be shared among users, and normally are used for a short period of time. In general, control data are from one bit of data to several bytes of data. The transmission of control data for a mobile station is very short in duration. Moreover, the duration between transmission and reception of a reply to a control message is short in comparison to a typical traffic data communication. The traffic data are large in comparison to the control data. As a result, the traffic channels assigned to a mobile station are maintained for a while. The traffic data transmission may also be in a discontinuous manner. As such, the traffic channels are maintained as long as there is a possibility of transmitting traffic channel data. If the traffic channel is not used after a dormant period of time, the traffic channel is torn down.
In certain cases, where the size of control data is too large to be transmitted over a control channel, a traffic channel may be set up to transmit the control data to a specific mobile station. However, when the traffic channel is set up for transmission of control data, the channel may not be torn down for a while, resulting in inefficient use of traffic channel resources. Therefore, there is a need for using a traffic channel for communications of control data in a wireless communication system very efficiently.